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William King
Early Years & Education William King was born youngest of 7 children on November 11, 1812 in Londonderry, Ireland.Pease, William H., and Jane H. Pease. Black Utopia: Negro Communal Experiments in America. Madison: The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1963.84 Buxton National Historic Site & Museum. “Reverend William King (1812-1895).” Buxton Museum Virtual Exhibit. Accessed February 3, 2018. http://www.buxtonmuseum.com/history/PEOPLE/king-william.html. King moved to Scotland in 1830, where he attended the University of Glasgow.84 King moved with his family to Ohio in 1833. His parents had sold their farm in Ireland and bought '630 acres of wilderness' near Cleveland. He worked to help clear the land and establish the new family farm for a few years before setting off to begin his own career.84 e Louisiana In 1836 King began a job as tutor to the children of three wealthy Louisiana families. There he established himself as a strict (and corporal) disciplinarian. In 1839 he accepted the position of Headmaster of Mathews Academy of Louisiana College under the condition he had the "power to correct" teachers and pupils. Radical changes that King implemented were to create dorms from previously private rooms and confiscating student weapons (bowie knives, pistols, stilettos). In his new position as Headmaster, William acquired a measure of wealth and his social standing was elevated to mingling with the privileged classes. The Sunday before beginning his work at Mathew's Academy he listened to the words of his predecessor, who in his farewell address preached from the Gospel of Mark, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" This text stayed with William, and he credits it with having a "forceful effect" on his life. The Academy merged with the college at Jackson in 1841, and King was made superintendent of the preparatory division.84 Marriage, Divinity School, & Tragedy One of the job requirements for the superintendent position was to be married, and he soon wed Mary M. Phares, daughter of a local plantation owner and slaveholder. He was 28. Soon after the birth of his son, Theophilus, King resigned from Mathews Academy and bought a plantation which adjoined his father-in-law's. In January of the next year, 1844, he left his young wife and child with her father and returned to Scotland to attend the University of Edinburgh (Free Church College) in pursuit of a divinity degree. As a student he worked in a mission church in the worst slum of Edinburgh. 'Here King saw humanity at its most depraved and oppressed. He worked zealously, "where the inhabitants had fallen through neglect to the lowest state of moral degradation."' (3) 85 He was back in Louisiana in June 1845, having worked as First Mate on the ship Patrick Henry due to being otherwise unable to book passage home. King planned on returning to Scotland with his young family, and they stopped in Ohio to visit his family before they left. There the 3 year old Theophilus caught a fever and died. Another baby, Mary Elizabeth Chalmers, was born in late 1845. In February 1846, the elder Mary died after a quick bout of consumption, aka tuberculosis. Baby Mary followed only a few months later, dying in May of 1846. Slave Owner and Manumission While at Mathews Academy, King had purchased slaves after being unable to find acceptable servants. He wrote, After prayerfully studying over what my duty was... I concluded to buy him Negro, on the principle 'that I should do unto others, as I would that they in similar circumstances should do to me.' I bought a cook, and drawing room servant with the view of treating them kindly, and setting them free as soon as circumstances would permit. (2) 85 Several years later, during his time as a divinity student at Edinburgh, the Free Presbyterian Church o'. Scotland was rocked with scandal from America. Abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison condemn the church for collecting money in the American South-- money that was necessarily 'tainted by slavery.' The English Garrisonians even accused 'some of the students at the seminary of being slave owners.' As the authors of Black Utopia later wrote, In a way, what made matters worse for King was the very fact that the charge had been general, that the Church authorities were themselves quite unaware that he was a slaveholder. The moral issue - and the dilemma - were thus King's alone. Should his status become known not only woudl his missionary career be ended, but the inevitable publicity would undoubtably make it that much more difficult for him to manumit his slaves and take them out of Louisiana. If he kept the secret, was he not guilty of duplicity and unworthy to be God's servant? King debated. Then he accepted the decision of the Church that "slave holding in itself is not sinful." He said nothing. (5) 86 In early 1847 the freshly licensed King was preaching across Canada, when he was recalled to Louisiana by the Phares family to settle his father-in-law's estate. Part of the estate included his own inheritance (through his late wife) of a number of slaves. He was finally forced to admit to the Presbytery that he was a slave owner. As he wrote, The secret that I had kept with regard to my position had now to be made known. I would have to resign my commission, and tell the Presbytery that I was the owner of a plantation and slaves in Louisiana. When the Presbytery met I informed them of my position. The news fell like a bomb shell on the members of the Presbytery. Heartened by King's intention to free the slaves and bring him back to Canada, he was allowed to return to Louisiana. There he kept his plan a secret, refusing an offer of $9,000 for his slaves, and in fact buying a young boy for $150 so he would not be separated from his mother. In April 1848, King and the 15 enslaved people under his care traveled up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, landing at his family's farm. The story of King's northern migration with his slaves was printed in a number of newspapers, 'making him a celebrity and awakening public attention to the hopeless conditions of fugitive slaves.' There, safely in the north, he freed his slaves and left them in the care of his brother, who was to teach them the 'basics of survival in the north - preserving food, building shelter, and farming.' King recognized that freedom alone was insufficient, but to have a successful life, former slaves must be given the necessary training to survive outside the plantation system. In his autobiography King later wrote, I believe that these persons who had escaped slavery, when placed in favourable circumstances, were able and willing to support themselves and become respectable members of society; and to accomplish that I believe it was necessary to provide homes where parents could support themselves by their own industry and their children with the blessings of a Christian education. Elgin Founding Debt & Pittsburgh Having used his savings to pay for seminary and his inheritance to bring his slaves North, by summer 1850 when he learned that the Free Church of Scotland wasn't depositing his wages, King was broke and deeply in debt. Elgin was growing faster than expected and King was paying for the school's supplies himself. He took out a second mortgage on his property, but the situation 'was still dire.' Later that year King went to visit the Presbyterian stronghold of Pittsburgh to raise money. The trip was a success, forming a warm relationship between the two communities. In addition to raising $400 during the trip, soon after he returned to Canada, the community received several boxes of books dubbed the "Presbyterian Library" from 'the ladies of Allegheny City,' as well as 5 Missionary Maps for the school. Soon they received an even larger gift, a 500 pound bell from the "Colored Inhabitants of Pittsburgh." It was the first steeple bell west of London. 'The Buxton Liberty Bell rang at 6 a.m. each morning and 9 p.m. each evening to remind the settlers of their brethren still in bondage, and everytime a slave reached freedom in Buxton.' Marriage In the early 1850s King remarried Jemima Nicole Baxter, who he met while widowed and working at the Free Church in Scotland. Chatham Collegiate Institute King was appointed trustee of the Chatham Collegiate Institute in 1851. It was 'the only qualified college preparatory school west of Toronto.' I saw it rise from a class of 12 pupils to be the first collegiate institute in the Dominion with a full staff of teachers and 300 pupils on the roll, sending out annually a number of well-qualified teachers and others to enter the University to qualify for the different learned professions. Later Years & Death King moved to Chatham in 1880 and lived there until his death in 1895. References